AN ESCAPED pet tortoise has been reunited with its owner after being found wandering along a railway line in Southend, Essex.
Tony the tortoise had been missing from his home in nearby Westcliff-on-Sea for over two weeks according to a post from owner Maxy Barrow on Tuesday.
However, the runaway reptile was finally tracked down and returned home safe and sound yesterday after staff at the city’s Central Station spotted him crawling along the tracks by the platform at less-than-breakneck speed.
Rail operator c2c shared a video filmed by a staff member which shows them walking along the station platform, focusing the camera on a small, dark object in the middle of the track.
Once closer, the object is revealed to be Tony, who crawls along briskly – for a tortoise – and clambers over the wooden sleepers.
Further footage shared by the company shows him sitting in a crate after his rescue, quite content munching on cucumber.
c2c shared the clip to social media yesterday with the pun-filled caption: “Is anybody missing a tortoise?
“This little guy seems to have sh-eloped from his owners and made it to Southend.
“He’s now safely shell-tering with ticket office staff.”
It has since received over 280 likes and a host of comments from Brits mostly amused by Tony’s exploits.
One quipped: “He’s moving faster than the trains.”
Another joked: “Total disregard for safety. Was he bang road in the footage? No hi-viz fest. Had he requested a line block?
“Let’s hope his owners shell-a-brate when he gets back. I’ll stop now.”
A third commented: “I hope he shelled out for a ticket.”
A fourth said: “Last month there was a tortoise on the track at South Western Railway. What is the obsession with tortoises and railways?”
Another wrote: “Still quicker than your team to get back to me about my claim for a delay repay in June.”
A spokesperson for c2c said today: “The team at Southend Central were taken by surprise when they spotted a tortoise on the tracks Wednesday night and reached out to our colleagues at Network Rail to safely escort him off the railway.
“Unfortunately, they couldn’t find him but when our colleagues checked again in the morning they found Tony making his way up the tracks, they got in touch with Network Rail to block the line and get him to safety.
“He took shell-ter in the ticket office with our colleagues until his owner collected him.
“Tony has reportedly been missing from Westcliff for the past two weeks – we can confirm taking the train from Westcliff to Southend Central would have been quicker.”
Speaking today, Tony’s owner Maxy Barrow, 34, said: “We remained hopeful that we would find him but as the days went on, obviously, we were getting more and more worried.
“We put up signs and social media posts. We had quite a few leads that turned out not to be Tony, I think the hot weather has made a lot of tortoises go walk about.
“We think a fox or something may have picked Tony up as his crate was turned upside down and that’s the only way he could get out of the garden.
“When c2c got in contact I was desperately hoping it was actually Tony, then when we realised it was him, we were so happy and relieved to get him home safe,
“We were all really emotional.”
